Post-The Indigo Spell One-Shots
by SavannahKristen
Summary: A series of scenes of all sorts that take place after The Indigo Spell. Shenanigans ensued. Read at your own risk.


**These one-shots are going to take place after Richelle Mead's, The Indigo Spell. If you haven't read it, they may not make sense, and they will spoil it for you! You've been warned!**

**That aside, I hope that you all enjoy. (: **

**One-shot #1: Hopper's Escape.**

**Synopsis: Hopper escapes from his home and chaos reigns on Amberwood.**

* * *

"The Alchemists have such a noble cause, you know," my sister told me as we were walking across Amberwood's campus. We boarded the shuttle bus and she sank daintily into the seat beside me. The Alchemists had become all we ever talked about. I had the growing urge to drive into the middle of the dessert and let a long, angry, scream. She'd been making me want to pull my hair out lately. This morning she'd practically preached to me while I'd been getting dressed. Her words made my skin crawl, and they made me burn with an anger and frustration I didn't know I had buried inside. It was unlike me to feel rage, but I felt it every time I saw the golden lily tattooed across her once bare left cheek.

How dare my father do that to her? How dare he drag her into the Alchemists' controlling, manipulative way of life, when he'd already done that to me?

"I mean, just look around us, Sydney. Look at all of these humans who have no idea the evil that lurks among them. It just feels so amazing to be part of a cause that's bigger than myself."

"Amazing is definitely my word of choice too, Zoe," I mumbled. The only amazing thing about today was that I'd resisted the urge to knock myself out with Ms. Terwilliger's latest spell book.

Zoe rambled on and I felt my phone vibrate with a text. I worked hard to hide a smile when I saw who it was from. Adrian had been my anchor in a sea of insanity lately.

_Has Jill talked to u yet?_

I frowned, and responded as quickly as I could: _Talked to me about what?_

_Tell u soon_, was his response.

The shuttle bus reached the girl's dorms, and I prepared to race to Jill and Angeline's room, claiming that I had to do my "regular check-in". Zoe was about to come with me, but I suggested she get a head start on her homework. She shot me a scrutinizing look, but otherwise left without a word. I shook off the uneasy feeling it gave me, and reached Jill and Angeline's room in record time.

When I knocked, it was Adrian who opened the door. I had the urge to throw myself in his arms, like most girls did when they saw their boyfriends. Of course, most girls didn't have to keep their relationships secret in order to avoid being captured and brainwashed. I opted for a small smile.

"Hey," I said, then, seeing the look on his face, I quickly added, "What happened?" A feeling of dread began to wash over me. Had Angeline stabbed someone? I'd heard they were dissecting frogs in biology today, and that was certain to involve sharp instruments. Had she tried to show her classmates how to cook frog legs?

Adrian ushered me inside and gave Jill and Angeline a glare. "They can explain," he said, crossing his arms.

Jill and Angeline began talking at the same time, but I was able to pick up a few key words from both of their explanations.

"What about Hopper?" I asked, that feeling of dread growing with each passing second. Hopper was a demonic miniature dragon, with a sweet disposition and a love for pie. I'd summoned him about a month ago, and he was safely locked away in an aquarium in Jill and Angeline's closet. I'd had to move him from my room, afraid my little sister might alert the Alchemists to my involvement with dragons.

Adrian answered me this time. "Our love child is on the loose," he said, completely deadpan. When I'd summoned Hopper, Adrian and I were the first people he'd seen. According to Ms. Terwilliger, Hopper thought of me and Adrian as his parents.

I spun around to face him. "What?" I asked, feeling my eyes bugging out of my head.

"Jailbait and her sidekick there thought it'd be a cool idea to let him out for a little while."

"He can't stay locked in that aquarium all day!" Jill protested.

I held my hands up slowly, and took a deep breath. "Let me get this straight. There is a demonic dragon scurrying around Amberwood's campus right now?"

When I was met with silence, I entered panic mode. I had no time to scold Jill and Angeline for their indiscretions. My instincts to protect the supernatural world came back in full force and I began to bark out orders.

"Jill, Angeline, you search the girl's dorms. Adrian, you and I will start covering the rest of campus."

Without another word, I grabbed Adrian's hand and began to pull him out into the hallway. He paused for a moment.

"Have I ever mentioned I love it when you take charge?" The look in his eyes and the tone in his voice implied that his words had nothing to do with me leading a dragon hunt. I tried to ignore how flustered his comment made me, and pulled him along. As we exited the girl's dorms, I dialed Eddie.

"Is Jill okay?" He asked automatically.

"I'm contemplating killing her later, but other than that, yes, she's fine. Listen, I'm about to ask you to do something really weird, but I need you to just not ask questions, okay?"

"Okay…"

"There is a small, brown, dragon loose on Amberwood's campus."

"A _dragon_?"

"That's what I said, isn't it?" I hissed, the stress finally getting to me. Beside me, Adrian was stifling laughter.

"Is it a threat to Jill's safety?" He asked, kicking into guardian mode.

"No, it's harmless, I promise. It's like a tame lizard. I need you to search the boy's dorms for it, okay? If you find it, call me immediately. And um, try to leave Neil out of it, will you?" I added that last part hesitantly. Neil was a new guardian we'd acquired, and I didn't know enough about him yet to say I trusted him with this.

Eddie was silent, obviously stunned. He eventually muttered an "okay," and hung up. Eddie didn't know about my involvement with witchcraft, but neither did Angeline, and she'd accepted Hopper was just an endangered species. Of course, Angeline's IQ was probably considerably lower than Eddie's.

Adrian and I entered the school's main campus, and luckily, it was mostly empty. Most students were back in their dorms or at athletic events. I was pretty sure there was a basketball game this afternoon, and I prayed Hopper wasn't currently scampering around center court.

"Wait," Adrian said, as I was heading into the first open classroom. "We've got to have something to feed him when we find him."

I paused to give him a level look. "Do you happen to have some pie in your pocket?"

"No, but there's a vending machine right down the hall. I'll go get something, and then I'll meet you back in here."

I tried to search for the dragon without tearing the classroom apart. It was hard though, considering Hopper was small enough to fit into my palms. I grew hopeless for a moment. How were we ever going to find him? This campus was huge. For all we knew, Hopper could've hopped in the back of someone's car and be on his way out of the country by now.

I frowned, thinking of how close I'd come to leaving the country a few weeks ago. Marcus and his Merry Men were due back in town any day now, and I was certain when they arrived, one of them would come to let me know they were back. I just hoped I wouldn't have to deal with any of them today.

Although, the more people looking for Hopper, the merrier, I thought wryly.

When I was certain Hopper wasn't in the first classroom, I crossed the hall to enter yet another one. Adrian caught up with me, a bag of M & M's in his hand.

We moved more quickly together, and before long, we'd reached Ms. Terwilliger's classroom. I dared to hope that maybe, _maybe,_ Hopper was sitting on her desk. He was nowhere in sight though. Ms. Terwilliger gave me and Adrian a surprised look, as she pushed her glasses up her nose.

"Miss Melbourne. Adrian. Is everything alright?"

"We lost the dragon," Adrian let out, a bit out of breath from all of the running around.

She appeared amused. "Oh? Well that sounds a bit bothersome. I daresay I hope that you find him before he gets hungry."

"You mean you're not going to help us look for him?" I asked in disbelief.

"I told you once that calistanas were a pain in the ass. He's not my pain in the ass, he's yours."

"But you made me summon him!" I pointed out, exasperated. "Aren't you worried about humans finding out about witchcraft?"

"I don't think humans are going to associate him with witchcraft. They will probably think he's a lizard, and he'll outrun anyone who tries to pick him up. If he gets hungry, well, that's a different story."

Adrian and I left her classroom, and eventually finished searching the entire academic building. Adrian's commentary grew more and more colorful as the search went on.

"I feel like I should be having a more emotional reaction to our son being a runaway," he said, as we crossed the campus grounds. "What do you think we did to run him off?"

"Maybe he got tired of me having to turn him into a rock before I moved him into Jill and Angeline's room."

Adrian nodded solemnly. "We should go to family counseling."

Then, I heard it. The smooth plucking of a guitar and the giddy giggling of girls. I stopped in my tracks, causing Adrian to run into me. I hoped that one of the band members had managed to learn how to play over winter break, and was now the hunk of the school campus. My wish didn't come true though. Just behind the girl's dormitory, I caught sight of Marcus Finch. Also, I recognized one of the girls listening to his music. Sabrina was there with his entourage, though I was sure she was the only girl with a gun in her pocket.

"Oh God," I said, feeling like I might faint, though it had nothing to do with how swoon-worthy I found Marcus: I didn't. It had everything to do with the fact that I didn't have time for this.

"What the hell is he doing here?" Adrian grumbled beside me, his green eyes narrowing.

I turned to him and gave him a tired look. "I don't know. But I'll go find out. Keep looking for Hopper, okay? I'll catch up with you."

Adrian held my gaze for a few moments, and then left with a small smile. I found myself wanting to escape this whole mess, and not with just anyone. I wanted to escape with him. My thoughts drifted to our time in Malibu, where we'd gotten to just be together. There'd been no life-or-death experiences, or missing dragons. It'd just been me and him, and for those precious hours, that was all I'd wanted. It still was.

Marcus shot me one of his signature movie-star grins as I approached. He set his guitar down and asked the girls for some privacy. All but Sabrina retreated.

"Hey, gorgeous. How have you been?"

"Never better," I responded dryly. "What do you want?"

"I want a lot of things," he said simply, still smiling. "I want you to seal your tattoo. I want Sabrina to be an angel and put my guitar up for me." She nearly swooned and began to place the guitar back in the case. "And while we're at it, I want world peace too."

"Well that's good, Marcus," I said, crossing my arms. "It's good to want things."

He chuckled and picked his guitar up. He seemed to find my sarcasm funnier than usual, and began to babble about Mexico. I was curious about what all he and the Merry Men had done, but his words were lost on me, as I caught sight of someone behind him. Adrian was approaching furtively from behind Marcus and Sabrina, his eyes fixated on Marcus. For a moment, I thought Adrian was planning a stealth attack, which was not something I was prepared to deal with. I almost said as much, but then my eyes rested on a small, brown creature slowly making its way up Marcus's guitar case.

I let out a little squeak when I noticed the dragon, but luckily, Marcus was so absorbed in his own words, he didn't notice. Sabrina was watching the parking lot too dutifully to notice Adrian still approaching from behind.

"Amelia decided to get a crescent design kind of like mine, but Wade got something completely different," Marcus said. The dragon had crawled all the way across his guitar strap now, and was slowly making its way onto his shoulder…

"His looks more like a –" Marcus frowned, and tilted his head to peer at me curiously. "Is something wrong? You look like you're about to faint."

I shook my head about fifty times. "No, no. I'm fine. It's just a little warm outside, that's all."

Marcus raised his eyebrows, but continued with his story. The dragon was sitting firmly on his shoulder now, and sniffed profusely. Maybe he liked the smell of Marcus's Ocean Fiesta deodorant. How long until Sabrina turned around and noticed him sitting on her leader's shoulder?

Adrian was almost directly behind Marcus now, and with as close as Hopper was to Marcus's head, I was certain Adrian grabbing him was going to result in disaster. Suddenly, an idea came to me. If I could just find a reason to hug Marcus, I could grab Hopper and stuff him in my purse before Marcus had time to notice.

"I can't believe I'm saying this but I've actually missed you," I blurted out frantically, to Marcus. Adrian's face darkened behind him, but that wasn't what made my plan fall through. My words had gotten Sabrina's attention, and she spun around, a jealous look on her face. Her eyes then went wide, as she noticed Hopper sitting on Marcus's shoulder.

"Oh my God!" Sabrina let out, pulling her gun from her pocket and pointing it at Hopper. Marcus seemed to think she was pointing it at him.

"Sabrina, what the hell?" Marcus snapped, turning so that he ran into Adrian. Startled, Marcus raised a hand to throw a punch.

"Stop!" I cried, wondering how a missing dragon had escalated to such violence.

"There's some creature on his shoulder!" Sabrina called out.

Marcus reached to his shoulder, looking like he didn't believe there was actually anything there. When he grabbed the dragon, Hopper let out a loud shriek, startling everyone. Marcus shouted a profanity as a frightened Hopper raked one of his claws across the ex-Alchemist's pretty face. Marcus dropped Hopper and Hopper scurried over to Adrian, who scooped "our son" up into his arms.

"What the hell's with the gun?" Adrian demanded. "He's just a dragon!"

I ran a hand through my hair, and willed the earth to swallow me whole. Sabrina slowly put her gun back in her pocket, and Adrian began to feed Hopper the M & M's. Marcus rubbed the spot where Hopper had scraped him, and turned to get a good look at his attacker.

"Damn," Marcus murmured. "That thing is awesome. Where can I get one?"

I didn't know what to say to that. I did know one thing though. It appeared that Adrian was going to have to take full custody of our son. I just wasn't a responsible mother.


End file.
